DeKALB – The DeKalb Park District Board of Commissioners has once again dipped into its pool of recent election candidates to fill a vacant board spot, this time appointing the brother of a former commissioner.

Bryant Irving, who finished fourth in a four-way race for two board posts in the April 2013 election, was appointed during a special meeting Friday. He steps in for former board treasurer Mike Teboda, who recently stepped down for health reasons.

“I have lived here all of my life, and this is something I have always wanted to do,” said Irving, a former carpenter at Northern Illinois University who retired in 2008. “My goals are to get the pool [issues] resolved and to help hire the new executive director.”

After the death of former commissioner Ralph “Don” Irving late last year, the board appointed Dean Holliday to fill the vacant post. Holliday also ran in the consolidated election, finishing ahead of Irving. Don Irving and Bryant Irving are brothers.

“There is no specific way we have to do this when it comes to policies that pertain to the board,” board President Phil Young said. “With any vacant position, we have tried to take candidates that have run in the past year because we knew they were available. These guys have tried before and are all committed to the job.”

Board Vice President Per Faivre agreed.

“We wanted to echo the same sentiment that we did with Dean Holliday,” Faivre said. “Bryant Irving was on the ballot last year, so that is who we decided to appoint.”

With the appointment, all four candidates from the 2013 election are members of the board. The two winners from that election were Faivre and Keith Nyquist, who serves as board secretary.

“If another one opens up in the future, we will open it up to applicants because no one else ran,” Young said. “If they had run two or three years ago, we probably wouldn’t have done it this way, but this was all within the past year.”

Bryant Irving’s term runs through May 2015.

“The park district will run a little better if we get the pool [issues] settled, and right now, employees are probably a little uneasy without a permanent director,” said Bryant Irving, 69. “I’m going to see how this goes and try and help as best that I can, and then make a decision if I want to run for re-election after that.”

Holliday also was appointed the new treasurer during the special meeting.